How state budget went live before its time

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, January 14, 2012

The backstory on how Gov. Jerry Brown's budget was accidentally posted online five days too soon has yet to be revealed. But we got a few answers this week, though Department of Finance leaders won't come clean about all the details.

Here's what we know for sure:

On Jan. 4, officials put the final touches on Brown's budget document. The next day, staffers in the department began loading it online, on what was supposed to be a secured network of servers.

"For reasons that I haven't had time to focus on ... those materials somehow migrated onto an additional server that did not have a block on it," said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Finance Department.

The document was live for about an hour when a staff member at the Capitol - who doesn't work for the administration - phoned the department just after noon to alert officials of the release, said Ana Matosantos, director of the department. We pestered, but she wouldn't tell us who tipped her off.

"We learned that it occurred and we moved forward and the budget got released," Matosantos said.

She notified the governor, who she said responded with, "All right, we're having a press conference."

Palmer then called the media.

"We went from zero to gubernatorial news conference in less than two hours," he said.

We know there's more to this story, and if we get any more scintillating details, we'll let you, dear reader, know.

The simple facts: After Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi pleaded no contest last week to stealing nearly $2,500 worth of clothing from San Francisco's Nieman Marcus store, her criminal attorney made a comment that left many people scratching their heads.

Douglas Rappaport told reporters that Hayashi, a Democrat representing Castro Valley, was taking medicine for a benign brain tumor and that the condition could have affected her behavior.

That raised the obvious questions about whether her judgment was sharp enough for her to vote in the coming months on proposed budget cuts, a multibillion-dollar water bond and other important issues.

This week, Hayashi issued a statement to try to clear up the matter: she said she accepts responsibility and offers "apologies, not excuses."

"The simple fact is I unintentionally walked out of a store with items I had not paid for ... losing track of clothing I was purchasing is no excuse," Hayashi said. "There were a number of personal factors that led to the situation where I made this absentminded error. My medical condition may have complicated the situation, however I want to be clear that I take full personal responsibility for my actions. I want to assure you that I am taking steps to deal with my health and continuing to work hard for my district and for the people of California."

We'll see if the public agrees - Hayashi is exploring a state Senate run in 2014, and has already raised nearly $200,000 for the effort. In the meantime, she's barred from going near the Union Square store and will be on probation for three years.

Down is up: We reported earlier in the week that, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office, tax revenue next year could come in $5 billion less than what Gov. Jerry Brown and his Department of Finance are projecting.

Democratic leaders in the Legislature have said they don't want to make the cuts proposed in the governor's budget - such as slashing $1 billion from welfare - until it is absolutely necessary.

Steinberg said that the analyst's projection confirms his desire not to cut until later because lawmakers should wait to get a clearer picture on tax revenue. But if the analyst is right, that could mean more, not fewer, cuts.

Steinberg's response? He pointed to a line in the analyst's report noting that negative trends can reverse quickly.

But he also took a few shots at all of the various projections and said the Legislature shouldn't act until the analyst and the administration come closer to agreement on the numbers.

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"I'm not cutting services for people in need unless and until it's necessary, and certainly unless and until those wildly different numbers are reconciled in some way. And they're far from being reconciled," he said.

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